As spring springs to life, geocaching in Oxford and surrounding areas allows people to explore nature and the community at their leisure.
Geocaching turns exploration of natural areas into a game, using a smart phone's GPS, according to Jim Reid, field manager of Miami University's natural areas.
"The people who are doing the geocaching take their GPS units and work to navigate to where that cache is to try to figure out where and what it is," Reid said. "A cache can be anything, such as a physical place itself that you want someone to visit or it can be a box that has goodies in it."
Robbyn Abbitt, geographic information systems coordinator of Miami's geography department, likened geocaching to a high-tech treasure hunt. When someone places a cache, they use a GPS to record its latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates. That location is then broadcasted to global, online forums, where people may seek caches to hunt. Abbitt said caches can be hidden anywhere in urban or rural areas.
"The key is to hide it somewhere everyone can get to, but not just an everyday passerby who could see it and take it," Abbitt said. "Some people get really tricky and bury them or put them up in trees."
Currently, there's a cache hidden at Miami's art museum, which is registered online, according to Abbitt.
Reid said the natural areas surrounding Miami's campus are prime geocaching locations
"If you go to Miami University Natural Areas on Google, you will see a map under trails," Reid said. "These are all lands owned by the university and are reserved for research, education and casual enjoyment of nature."
Reid said he has hidden 20 caches along the 17 miles of trail located in the 1,000-acre natural areas that Miami owns. There are over one million caches worldwide.
Reid said he hides caches in an attempt to encourage young people to explore the woods in a fun way and take advantage of Miami's splendid natural areas.
"When you find a cache, you're in a place of great beauty or interest within the natural area," Reid said. "They can be hidden in a crevice of a tree, a hollow log or under a walking bridge close to the trail."
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Geocaching.com hosts the database of caches that people have uploaded across the United States, according to Abbitt.
The website allows geocachers to search for caches based on degree of difficulty or to report a vandalized or missing cache if necessary, according to Reid, based on his firsthand experience.
"When people go out to geocache, if they don't find a cache, they report it on the Internet and a copy automatically goes to me to replace it," Reid said.
"[Geocaching.com] is the 'unofficial official' geocaching organization for the United States, so they have some rules they'd like geocachers to play by," Abbitt said.
It's generally understood that caches should be stashed in a reasonable place where injury would not befall someone trying to access it, according to Abbitt.
Abbitt said the unwritten rules of geocaching are simple: remember where you parked your car, do not go solo and, if the cache contains a prize, replace it with another prize for the next person who comes along.
The team-on-a-mission mentality and opportunity to stumble across a prize have popularized geocaching in recent years, especially in the last ten, as GPS technology has become less prohibitively expensive, according to Abbitt.
"Geocaching is seen by so many different organizations now as kind of a fun thing to do," Abbitt said. "It's kind of like a 5K everyone does to raise money or to get people to participate."
Junior Amy Pritchard said she enjoys hiking Miami's natural areas, but said she had never heard of geocaching.
"I would definitely be interested in searching for caches," Pritchard said. "I think searching for caches in the nature trails connects Miami to a larger network of people who are also interested in exploration and adventure."
Abbitt has managed a geocaching tournament on campus for the past three years, recently hosting 20 participants.
"In the fall of 2013, the geography department is pairing with the art museum and we're going to do a geocaching tournament of art instillations and significant historical artistic sites across campus," Abbitt said. "Instead of finding a trinket, you'll be finding a location that is physically or historically significant."
Reid said geocaching is appealing to young people, adding that his caches' degree of difficulty is relatively low.
"Some people collect caches like other people collect stamps," Reid said. "And it's a great way to explore your community."
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